Driving safe, at any age

Reggie Judson has been driving for nearly 70 years, has never had an accident and has gotten only one speeding ticket. For a former truck driver, that's an achievement, as well as one of the many reasons Judson is a good choice to teach a driver safety course for seniors for AARP.

Judson could talk for hours about the benefits of taking the course, but highest on his list is making seniors more comfortable on the highway and keeping them safe.

"More than anything else, the course gives seniors more confidence with what they have to face today," the Holden man says.

Why a course?

AARP points out that many older drivers first learned to drive more than 40 years ago, well before the advent of formal driving education courses for new drivers.

That means many may never have received some of the information the course provides.

And the swift technological change may also be a problem.

Many seniors, Judson says, have already cut down on their driving; that makes anything new they might have to face when they do drive more difficult.

"Everything is changing in their cars, everything is changing on the roads," Judson says. "The changes that are taking place today, many of them are very confusing to seniors. The idea is to refresh them so they update their thinking."

The course reviews all the basic rules of the road as well as the things that have changed and offers suggestions as to how to continue to drive, and safely. It also reviews the physical changes seniors face, and suggests ways to compensate for those.

Judson has taken many of the suggestions himself; at 86, he limits his driving to the hours when the roads are less busy, between the hours of 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. He drives less at night and when it's raining, and lauds Holden for having wider streets where the lights of oncoming cars are less of a problem when he does have to drive at night.

The course offers these suggestions and others to help seniors continue to drive and thereby maintain their independence.

The safety suggestions the course reviews to its drivers they make three rights to avoid a left in order to save the gas used when vehicles are idling waiting for a turn. For others, the suggestion, which has become something of a joke, nevertheless has a serious purpose: left hand turns are far more dangerous and result in far more crashes.

Judson's experience as a driver and mechanic adds another dimension to the course; he's able to reflect as something of an expert on the technical changes seniors face with cars that change all the time.

Besides making seniors more confident, Judson says the course, and the certificate seniors are given after completion, helps seniors in other ways. Though Massachusetts already gives seniors a discount, in other states, taking the course entitles seniors to those discounts. Judson has also heard of instances where having the certificate has shown law enforcement that a senior cares about their performance on the road and thereby avoid citations.

While there is regular discussion of having seniors retake driver tests (and some do have to take competency tests due to some infraction), Judson has another suggestion: just as the state gives young teens licenses with limits (like not driving at night or with other youngsters in the car), he suggests that giving seniors licenses with limits would be far better than requiring them to retake their driving tests and expecting the kind of performance that's expected of new young drivers.

There are several parts of the basic driving test, Judson says, that would be difficult for seniors to pass, like the parallel parking requirement.

The course has become very popular: Judson said a recent AARP meeting included kudos for the state's program, which has garnered better attendance than most states

The course, for anyone age 50 or older, covers eight hours in two, four-hour sessions. Cost for the course is $10 to cover the AARP manual and the state driver manual. It is being offered at the Holden Senior Center on May 21 and 22, 9 a.m.-2 p.m., and at the Worcester Senior Center on May 27 and May 29. Call Judson at 508-210-0044 to register.